This meeting will encompass the most exciting current research on eukaryotic mRNA transcription and its regulation. Sessions will address the following pivotal topics in the field: how chromatin and its modification actively sets levels of gene-specific transcription;promoter recognition complexes and their function in directing transcription initiation;the structure and organization of large macromolecular transcription complexes as revealed by X-ray crystallography and electron microscopy;transcriptional coregulatory complexes and their roles as mediators of transcriptional regulation during differentiation and development;the steps in the transcript synthesis reaction;and the application of emerging imaging techniques to the real time analysis of transcription in living cells. The goals of this meeting are to report the most recent progress on these topics, as well as to provide an understanding of both detailed transcriptional regulatory mechanisms and how transcriptional regulation integrates with other cellular and developmental processes. The meeting will focus on recent advances in the study of eukaryotic transcription, which is the process of copying DNA into RNA during the first step of gene expression. Transcription and its regulation in a gene specific fashion are central to all of biology. Many genetic diseases and cancers result from aberrant transcriptional regulation.